This invention relates to disk type brakes and especially to aircraft brakes utilizing carbon brake disks. These brakes have been assembled with the available wear portions of the stator and rotor disks having the same thickness. The brakes have then been operated until all the disks are fully worn at which time the disks are removed and refurbished or reworked to replace the available wear portions. The brakes are then reassembled with the refurbished or new disks having the same thickness of available wear portions. With this construction the heat sink mass is reduced by the total amount of wear of all the disks. This is not desirable because the heat sink mass must be above a certain level to hold the operating temperature down. The size and weight of brakes are limited on an aircraft and therefore the thickness of the available wear portions of the disks is also limited. This controls the number of landings between the refurbishing of the disks. The piston-cylinder assemblies for actuating the brakes also have a length determined by piston travel which is a function of the total wear of the disks. Where the brakes are operated until all the disks are fully worn, the piston travel is a significant factor which increases the length and, accordingly, the weight of the piston-cylinder assemblies.